Loving the beer of Bavaria! Hello Munich!

Munich Travel Blog

I arrived at my hostel last night, grabbed some supper, and hit the sack AFAP (as fast as possible)...I was so tired!

Today was super busy, but fun of course! I started off with a free walking tour of Munich. It was awesome...heard all about the history of Munich and saw some buildings of importance. I saw the Hofenbrauer house (probably spelled completelz wrong). It is a beerhouse that can hold 5000 people....one of the most popular in the world (also a center stage for people during Oktoberfest). It is also the place where Hitler first tried to make a speech and convince people to join his party (they threw their beer mugs at him).

I saw the palace of the former Kaiser and Kings.

Entrance to Dachau concentration camp.

We stopped for a break at Marienplatz (a big garden to drink beer at). It seems like beer is HUGE here! When the operahouse was on fire (a long time ago), the water was all frozen since it was January so the people formed a line to the Haufbranhouse and put the fire out with beer! So funny. I got a beer and some wurst at Marienplatz....soo good. All the beer girls wear the German bargirl outfit that is so well known. I want one! It would make a great Halloween costume. Unfortunately, they are also quite expensive. Darn!

I met a couple of girls from Eastcoast Canada (really nice), a group of 3 guys from Edmonton (one wearing an Oilers hat), and a couple of American guys from San Francisco. I love how easy it is to meet people here in Europe.

Out with the fun American and Canadian girls on a pub crawl.

So tonight, I am off with the 5 Canadians to go on a pub crawl to all the beerhouses, etc. Should be a blast!

The second half of my day was a lot more sombre. After the tour, I caught a train and bus to Dachau (the home of one of Nazi Germany's first concentration camps). It was certainly disturbing to say the least. I cannot even imagine the horror a being a prisoner there. There were so many pictures of the emancipated prisoners, prisoners who had experiments performed on them....horrific, and the living conditions, etc. The worst was the area where prisoners were cremated. There are still ashes around. Next to the crematorium, there was a building with an area that looked like a dark shower but instead, was an area to gas the prisoners to death.

Having fun on the pub crawl.

It was very scary to be there....it really is horrific. I just can't grasp how anyone would think it was okay to do what they did to a human being. Truly awful.

I used to wonder how on earth a crazy person like Hitler could be voted into power. But I understand a little bit now. In his most popular moment, only 40 some percent of German's supported Hitler's party (not the majority). After World War I, it sounds like the treaty of Versailles dealt Germany a pretty harsh hand....Germany had to make pay monetary reparations that were astronomical and impossible to pay back. The German's started printing money like crazy until about 4 trillion deuschtmarks were equivalent to 1 dollar American....people were literally starving in the streets and desparate for a better answer .... extreme parties (communism and facizm) stepped in, as they usually do in extremely bad times, and off Hitler went on his reign of terror. The amount of history in this country is incredible and most of the building are not the original since 80% of the city was destroyed in WWII.

Anyhoo, enough of the history lesson. Germany has been awesome so far! Tomorrow, I am off to Madrid to catch my plane to Morocco. Auf Wiedersen for now!